


the 2015 Life Day/Sithmas Countdown

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 05:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5404490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles based on a prompt series, originally posted on tumblr</p><p>Mostly Sith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Christmas Writing Prompt (tumblr post)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/162317) by justablobfish. 



Prompt: We need to buy you winter clothing  
(What but a jolly AU huh?)  
Palpatine was getting a bit tired and honestly rather warm, since the interior area was kept at a comfortable temperature, but he was not sure he wished to deal with whatever was causing Hego Damask’s displeased facial expressions.  
“Didn’t you take any warm clothes?” he muttered.  
“A sweater,” the teen reported. “That’s about the extent of what I would need, especially since I was expected to be on Coruscant for a week.”  
“That’s not enough for this planet. And you’ll have to go traipsing around in an enviro-suit until we can find something that fits you slightly better than these articles designed for Muuns,” his new mentor noted contemplatively.  
“Yes, well, I didn’t choose my height,” he deadpanned.  
The Muun gave him a funny look and actually snickered. “You would look a bit odd if you fit properly into Muun clothing, as a human.”  
“Hardly a unique difficulty.”  
“No, indeed, but I assumed your pride would preclude your wearing anything like an enviro-suit.”  
“If it’s a choice between my pride and hypothermia–well, I will take the practical route, Plagueis.”  
“Hardly, but I would have had to keep you inside. Strictly, you understand, to promote your well-being.” With a half-smile, he clapped the young man on the shoulder and then walked toward the counter on whatever errand he was presently interested.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt: Reading someone Christmas stories_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Darth Tenebrous sighed and used simpler words" X)   
> _~~I wrote this and I am still laughing at it.~~_

“Do stop squirming so, or I won’t read anything tonight.”

“Really?!” Hego asked in wide eyed astonishment. It was a rare occasion indeed that the young Muun had a babysitter, but he did tonight, at least until Father and Mummy got home from the Solstice Party. Or rather, he was being watched over and amused by their house guest. He concentrated on remaining almost satisfactorily still so Mr. Nome would get on with reading. He had an interesting voice, Hego thought, and Mummy preferred for the padd to read to him, and said it was more educational.

Holding the old-fashioned book printed on flimsiplast so that Hego could see the vividly colored illustrations, the Bith began to read: “Once, many years ago, on a small planet in the outer rim, there was a story about a legendary hero who delivered presents, and lived in a wonderful house near its north pole, along with the creatures who helped–”

But Hego could not help interrupting. “Was he like, like the hero in Mummy’s posters? Why’s he live at the north pole? Why would he want to live there?”

Rugess Nome looked very slightly amused. “No, this legend is not much like your mother’s comics, and I do not know why they believed that he, a fictional character, lived at their north pole except perhaps that it was a remote location and unlikely to be readily accessible by those who would dispel the myth and mystique of the story.”

“What?” the toddler blinked confusedly and stared at Mr. Nome, for he did not understand what he had meant with all those words.

Darth Tenebrous sighed and used simpler words. “People couldn’t visit the north pole easily to see if this Santa Claus really lived there, so it was a good place to have in a story and not be questioned about him not being real. Can I continue now?” Hego nodded, deciding it was more important to hear the story than to know right now all about Santa. “–along with the creatures who helped him to make presents for all children onplanet who behaved themselves. But right now there was a little girl staying in Santa’s workshop…” Hego found the little human girl in the illustration as Mr. Nome read about all the treats she had helped to make, but he decided that staying with Santa was probably not as fun as being babysat by Mr. Nome. There was no way, for instance, that Santa would have the time to read to him, or that he would even sit on the human’s lap like this. With this thought, he yawned and, taking a fistful of Mr. Nome’s loose sweater, cuddled into the Bith’s side, lulled into drowsiness by his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one minor edit to correct a verb tense/typo has been made. 
> 
> a note from the tags on the original tumblr post: apparently Hego's mother likes the local equivalent of... Batman. ~~which detail inspired both by Adsecula and my own mother, sort of. Except Hego's is into it on a level more like I'm into... other things~~


	3. A Very Separatist Life Day Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Prompt: decoration wars ~~(must include glitter)~~_

Count Dooku was not especially pleased to be woken at the moment, considering that he had gone to bed at an unmentionable hour (had the date been slightly farther from the solstice, it would have been dawn already) last night after extended conference with both various officials and Darth Sidious and was no longer young enough to get by on minimal sleep without consequences. Additionally, he could not say that a chorus of “Roger Roger,” “Roger Roger” made for a pleasant waking. Given his druthers, some music would have been better. However, it was quarter after noon local time, and he really could not stay in bed any long.

He was baffled, however, to find half a dozen battle droids, disarmed, grappling with some sort of unwieldy evergreen garland in the corridor.

“Do you like it?” Ventress inquired, sweeping past both him and the droids so fast that he wondered if she was wearing roller skates.

“Like what?” he grumbled, “I’ve had too little sleep to bother dealing with droid entanglements.”

“Oh!” she said, going the other direction and trailing a strand of multicolored lights on a wire. Dooku was privately inclined to think the particular sort, all in icy pastels, charming, even if no lights were charming when they threatened to create a whip-like action, but he thought the idea unbecoming and was not about to admit it. “I’ll have to tell Grievous his squad is tangled up then.”

His stomach growling for the breakfast he customarily took by 730 at the latest, he stepped towards the droids, contrary to his last complaint, and examined the situation. They were not actually entangled, but they did not have sufficient manipulator articulation to fix a hanging mechanism for the garland. If he’d even wanted it here… He also dreaded their taking notice of his presence: he very much doubted they could successfully manage the decoration to salute with it in hand.

“Count,” Grievous greeted him from the end of the hallway. He had some intention of finding the cyborg some decent throat lozenges and tea as a potential present for the exchange, but this morning he seemed to be managing quite well. Even if the rawness of his voice was generally intimidating, his cough could affect his reception in a manner hardly flattering to the CIS.

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

Prompt: Baking Christmas cookies  
(some sort of AU…?)

It had been a long day yesterday doing all the things he’d had to for school and Obi-Wan woke up later than he usually did. For two minutes he was scared silly by the light level even though the day was dreary, fearing he’d overslept and missed some of his tasks. But he realized shortly that break had begun, and more calmly visited the bathroom before wandering sleepily into the kitchen in search of food. He was slightly confused to see butter sitting on top of the stove and a bag of flour out on the counter. Furthermore, could he hear someone talking?

“…Yes, well, I’m not sure it needed to be a party,” someone he couldn’t identify said. 

“It’s rolled under the sofa!” Qui-Gon declared with amusement.

Obi-Wan peered into the other room and saw that Qui-Gon’s own mentor, Master Dooku, had come into their apartment, and evidently collided with Qui-Gon, going by the items strewn over the floor which Qui-Gon was still picking up.

“Hello, Obi-Wan,” Dooku said just as the doorbell rang.

“I thought we’d bake some cookies since I only have one day off work until the weekend and next week,” Qui-Gon explained, ignoring the doorbell, “and I invited Yan over.”  
Dooku rolled his eyes and opened the door. Obi-Wan was only slightly startled to see their newest neighbors, in the tiny apartment on the top floor of their apartment building, standing behind it. Little Anakin clung to his mother’s pants leg and Shmi looked a little startled to see Dooku, who she had probably never met. He promptly recovered and greeted her with a courtly half bow.

“Oh, Shmi!” Qui-Gon exclaimed as he got up off his hands and knees.

Before she could speak, someone in the hallway said, “No, I’m sorry, child, we cannot go to the bakery because I am going to receive an important call and must remain near my office.”

“I, ah,” Shmi confided in a low voice, “have the opportunity to work an extra shift and it would help us have Christmas, but the only other person who might be able to watch him is Mr. Watto and there was so nearly all that trouble–”

“You can help us bake cookies, huh, Anakin?” Qui-Gon suggested, beaming down at the small boy. “It’s no trouble, Ms. Skywalker; the more the merrier.”

Another voice, this one high and childish was clearly audible from the hallway, “But Unc– Mr. Palpatine, Sola promised we’d go and have, well, I don’t know what, but it was going to be special.”

“Yes,” replied the other person in the hallway with a sad note in his voice, “it’s quite unfortunate, but now it wouldn’t be nearly so special with me as with your sister, would it, Padme?”

“I guess not,” she replied, as Shmi gently coaxed Anakin into one of Qui-Gon’s already flour-dusted arms. 

Then the door buzzer rang. “Come on, my friend is getting cold out here,” came over the intercom, uncomfortably loud.

“Who is this?” Qui-Gonn asked, forgetting as he usually did that you had to press the button before they could hear you at the exterior door.

“Oh, dear.” said the person in the hallway, and rapped gently on the apartment door behind Shmi before peering in. “My associate seems to have once more confused my apartment number. Would you be so kind as to let him into the building?” He was not especially tall and was wearing somewhat fancy clothes. Obi-Wan had never talked to him before; he had not thought the man would have any interest in him.

“Do you live here?” the girl asked Shmi as the apartment door swung wide open.

“Yes–” Shmi said timidly.

“Who’s that? I was reasonably certain you wouldn’t have kids.” Dooku remarked. Obi-Wan wasn’t sure who he was addressing.

Qui-Gon let Anakin press the open button as Mr. Palpatine answered. “No, a distant cousin’s daughter, but the sister with whom she is staying had to…” he trailed off, looking at the girl.

“Go to a funeral. She was working as a nanny and one of the family’s older foster kids died,” the girl explained matter-of-factly.

“That’s a shame,” Qui-Gon offered before scrunching up his nose in a silly face at Anakin, even though the kid was probably too old for that.

A tone sounded on Mr. Palpatine’s phone and his expression changed as he checked the notification. “Well, I won’t have to worry about that important call. He’s attending a birth.”

“Who is?” asked a complete stranger who stepped into the doorway beside him.

“Couldn’t I stay here then and talk with her? You’re always busy when your office is open,” their neighbor’s cousin’s daughter begged.

“I have to go to work,” Shmi pointed out.

“But you could stay and bake with us,” Qui-Gon invited merrily, as Anakin leaned his head against the older man’s shoulder. “We’re trustworthy.”

Mr. Palpatine sighed. “For a couple of hours if you’re so inclined. I expect this is going to be quite the meeting. Hego, we can start upstairs.” 

“No, I’d like to know what’s being baked,” the stranger said, inducing their neighbor to stare at him, annoyed. Shmi backed out of the way after one last reassuring check on her son.

“Too many bakers spoiled the cake,” Dooku said firmly.

“And cookies are only a Dutch diminutive for cake,” Qui-Gon added, grabbing the pan he had dropped again.

“You aren’t even any good at baking,” Mr. Palpatine said of the stranger incredulously. “You burn everything and when you actually managed to remember to use the oven timer you’d misinterpreted the recipe and put far too much baking soda in the bread and besides its structural defects it tasted nasty.”

“I can learn,” he protested cheekily. “Or I could help decorate.”

Obi-Wan finally spoke up “We’re not actually having a party.”

“I meant the cookies.”

Qui-Gon quirked his head in thought before pronouncing, “Well, it’s not as if we know you very well, Mr. Palpatine. I suppose a cookie baking and now decorating party is as good an occasion as any to get to know your neighbors.”

“Of all the things you get yourself into, especially when you’re not even good at baking!” an elderly man remarked, looking at Mr. Palpatine commiseratively.

But only then did Yoda, the small and somewhat strange withered guru, come bursting into their apartment. To be sure, he had a standing invitation for Wednesday at supper time, but Obi-Wan would not have expected of him to come in on a random Tuesday morning, bearing a large box from which the smell of gingerbread wafted.

“Help I need, to assemble all these gingerbread houses for Christmas dinner decorations,” Yoda announced, sitting the box on the coffee table and sweeping aside Obi-Wan’s flashcards, two video game cases, and the pattern from which Qui-Gon had been starting an afghan last night. The girl, Hego, and the older man stampeded for the couches surrounding it, and Anakin, who was intrigued by Yoda, urged Qui-Gon to step closer and set him down beside Padme on the far side of the couch, a little ways out of the chaos.

“Quite frankly,” Mr. Palpatine informed Qui-Gon and Dooku hesitantly, “I’d rather bake.”

“Well, I think we might manage four cooks, if we coordinate oven times. But I pity Yoda trying to corral the children and the elderly.” Qui-Gon clapped their upstairs neighbor on the shoulder. Dooku glared at him for a moment for the elderly comment.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean you, old friend. But I can say from experience that Damask and Nome are quite the pair.” Then he looked at Obi-Wan, as if he hadn’t noticed him before.

Already, this Damask was helping the young girl, whose name Obi-Wan had yet to learn, gather the particular candies and colors for icing that she wanted, while his friend began erecting a gingerbread house, seemingly in competition with Yoda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #I don't even know?? don't let me write a Jedi get together all the SITH came over?? #but I mean. assembling gingerbread architecture (which Tenebrous is definitely gonna do) #and baking are far better things for Jedi and Sith to be involved in together than most stuff #human apartment building AU I guess??? I think Padme's in boarding school or something #and they're not necessarily Jedi exactly. or Sith. and I actually don't think Palpatine's a *politician* in this one
> 
> Originally here: http://rugessnome.tumblr.com/post/135009429263/more-prompt-baking-christmas-cookies-some


End file.
